A Day in Singapore

 February 5

We arrived in Singapore in the afternoon of February 4 with rain showers threatening. We had an excursion to the Night Safari, essentially a zoo where most of the animals are active at night - which in this part of the world is most of them. 

We had already done our packing as we would be leaving the ship in the morning and needed to have our bags out by 10 p.m., and had arranged with our butler to put them in the hall for us while we were out, but when the threatened rain turned into a heavy downpour we were glad we had not gone out into the city in the afternoon.

Ultimately we did cancel the safari as we discovered the amount of walking after the trolley tour was extensive, and after the last couple of days of tours Larry's right leg was bothering him enough that the walking would be uncomfortable. So we stayed on board on the last night, and managed to very easily get into Pacific Rim for dinner.

Arrival in Singapore - these buildings are new since our
last visit

An apartment complex! Look at that
bridge between the towers. 

The pool deck at night. No those aren't UFOs!
We were docked at the cruise pier beside Sentosa Island
and there is a cable car running from downtown to
the island that goes right over the ship. These are two cars with circles of LED
lights on the outside

It was grey and rainy in the morning when we left the ship at 9 a.m. Our transfer van got us to the Fullerton Hotel by 9:30, and we were sure there would be no rooms ready at that time. Rather than chance a shower without our umbrella available, we stayed in the large and comfortable lobby for a couple of hours and had lunch. Our room was ready for us before we finished it.

Finally getting a chance to have Nasi Goreng, an
Indonesian staple.

Larry opted for Fish and Chips ---- we seem to have
had quite a bit of fish and chips on this trip.

After lunch and a quick trip up to our room with our bags, we headed out for a walk around the area. It was still overcast, but there were no heavy showers expected.

The main entrance of our hotel, decked out
for Chinese New Year. This is one of the
historical buildings of Singapore

'Chinatown' along the Singapore River. 

The famous view of Marina Bay with the Marina Bay Sands
Hotel and the Art Science Museum

As we walked around the bay area, we came upon this Lego depiction of the Fullerton Hotel, created to celebrate the Fullerton Building's 90th birthday. It took a team 198 hours and 478,500 bricks to build it.

Our room was the second from the right 
below the red roof

Our walk in the Chinatown restaurant area.
Too bad we weren't hungry - there were all
sorts of small restaurants, and most weren't 
even Chinese.

Here's one I would have tried. Can't get much
fresher than this.

We didn't want a large dinner, so we ate in the hotel restaurant. I had to start off with the iconic Singapore Sling, and the Fullerton makes theirs with a little twist.

After dinner we went for a walk along the river beside the hotel.

The public walkway beside the hotel

The bridges are all lit up at night, and some of 
the buildings have laser light shows projected
on them

The view from our balcony

We were off to the airport at 7 a.m. for our 10:00 flight to Vancouver. Of course it dawned a beautiful clear day. Check in was a breeze - they do security at the gate for international flights at Changi Airport - and we had some breakfast in the Singapore Airlines Business Class Lounge. This airport has a reputation for being one of the world's best, and we discovered a couple of reasons why:

There is a multitude of things to see and do just in the airport. These garden oases are interesting to see and calming to walk through, and probably also provide some natural air cleaning. The blue sky is projected on the ceiling.

We had another long flight, 13 1/2 hours, ahead of us to Vancouver, and hoped we would be able to sleep for a few of them to start resetting our body clocks. It was easy to do since the crew darkened the windows in our 787 and turned off the lights not long after lunch service, but it was far from restful.

After a flight delay in Vancouver we finally got home, just in time for the largest snowfall of the winter. Even though it is cold and snowed all weekend as I finished writing the blog, we are glad to be home. We had a great time and saw lots of new places. The Indian Pacific journey was a highlight and whetted our appetite for some other interesting train trips.

The final post for this trip will be of my small pen and wash sketchbook that covers the whole trip. I was able to sketch on the train, in buses and even in the shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, and had some very nice comments from fellow guests, and our butler, who caught a glimpse.